Minn Kota Precision 440 charger

[Kramr]

Hey everyone,

Was reading the thread about batteries and made me think about the charger I'm using. 

I have a 36 volt Ultrex so I wanted the best 4 bank charger I could get. It has been an awesome charger for me and seems to be keeping the batteries in great condition. The problem I have been having is when I stay at Stockton Lake and keep my boat at the marina. I found that plugging the charger into the slip outlet would cause the breaker to shut off. I was able to plug into the marina outlet at the marina itself and it worked fine. I thought maybe there was something wrong with the charger and later had it checked out. They said it was working fine and maybe it was the boat slip outlets that couldn't handle the power it was pulling. I ran into another person keeping his boat at the marina with the same charger. He was having the same problem and had arrived at the same solution. My last boat had a 24 volt charger and I never had any problems.

Anyone else have problems with charging their 36 volt systems?

[Will S.]

Funny you should mention this about Stockton Lake.. Many years ago, my 24V kicked off the GFI breaker at the slip in Stockton.. Used an extention cord and got power just fine from a slip several slots away.. I suspect your charger is fine.. The electrical service at Stockton is probably STILL crap. I suspect it is STILL an old 110 V not 120V (no I wont get into any debates with electricians)

[moguy1973]

The 440 draws 7 amps. That's over half of what is safe to put on a 15A circuit (safe limit is 80% of the capacity of the breaker).  If there's another guy on the same circuit using the same charger it's putting the 15A breaker at it's limit and when both chargers are going at it full charge it's tripping the breaker.

[MrGiggles]

Breakers get weak over time when they're repeatedly tripped. They may need to replace it.

[Kramr]

35 minutes ago, MrGiggles said:

Breakers get weak over time when they're repeatedly tripped. They may need to replace it.

This was what I thought was the most likely issue. I have asked several times if they are going to replace/upgrade the circuits. Always get a non-committal answer which means it is considered low priority. I guess when more than just a couple of us are complaining they will make the necessary changes. I know money is tight for them so they are only fixing things that have no work-around.

 

1 hour ago, moguy1973 said:

The 440 draws 7 amps. That's over half of what is safe to put on a 15A circuit (safe limit is 80% of the capacity of the breaker).  If there's another guy on the same circuit using the same charger it's putting the 15A breaker at it's limit and when both chargers are going at it full charge it's tripping the breaker.

Even when I am the only 440 charger on the circuit, there are always several other boats plugged in as well, so I guess it's pretty easy to hit the 80% mark. 

[Kramr]

3 hours ago, Will S. said:

Funny you should mention this about Stockton Lake.. Many years ago, my 24V kicked off the GFI breaker at the slip in Stockton.. Used an extention cord and got power just fine from a slip several slots away.. I suspect your charger is fine.. The electrical service at Stockton is probably STILL crap. I suspect it is STILL an old 110 V not 120V (no I wont get into any debates with electricians)

I suspect there are 4 slips per circuit, maybe 6. So I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often. Maybe it is, they just don't say anything about other people having issues.

[Will S.]

3 hours ago, moguy1973 said:

The 440 draws 7 amps. That's over half of what is safe to put on a 15A circuit (safe limit is 80% of the capacity of the breaker).  If there's another guy on the same circuit using the same charger it's putting the 15A breaker at it's limit and when both chargers are going at it full charge it's tripping the breaker.

yup !